Episode 253: What If Anxiety Is a Habit?

Feeding The Mouth That Bites You: Parenting Teens Into Adulthood

Kenneth Wilgus, Cynthia Yanof

Education, Religion & Spirituality, Kids & Family, Christianity, Parenting, How To

4.8 • 801 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anxiety seems to be everywhere these days, which leaves many parents wondering what's normal, what's not, and how much we should be worried about our kids—or ourselves. This week, Cynthia and Dr. Ken have an honest conversation about anxiety, anxious thinking, and why understanding the difference matters.

They discuss how worry can become a cycle we unintentionally reinforce, why overthinking often makes anxiety worse, and how helping teens recognize their thought patterns can be a powerful step toward change. Along the way, they tackle common misconceptions about anxiety, medication, and the temptation to protect our kids from every uncomfortable feeling.

If you've ever wondered whether anxiety is something we're stuck with or something we can learn to manage differently, this episode offers an encouraging perspective. You'll walk away with practical tools for helping teens—and yourself—recognize anxious thinking and respond to it in healthier ways.

If you have a minute, please leave us a review. We love hearing listeners encouraging other listeners.

You can order Dr. Ken's book "Feeding The Mouth That Bites You" here

You can order Cynthia's book "Life Is Messy, God Is Good" here

You can order Cynthia's book "How'd I Miss That" here

Got questions or feedback? We want to hear from you! podcast@feedingthemouth.com

Music provided by the great John David Kent - https://www.johndavidkent.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Feeding the Mouth to Bight You, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world.
0:15.3	I'm Cynthia Yanov, and as always, I'm joined by psychologist and author Dr. Ken Wilgus.
0:20.9	Dr. Ken, since we're talking on anxiety today, I'm sure nobody will be listening.
0:24.9	Nobody's dealing with that in their own lives or their kids.
0:27.3	So it may be just you and me today.
0:28.9	To the small audience, since the 100% of the families in this podcast, of the podcasters,
0:35.0	have had issues with anxiety.
0:36.6	Then maybe it's just the two of us talking.
0:39.1	And if you've never known anyone with anxiety, then please feel free to tune out.
0:43.3	Skip to the next one, right?
0:45.2	Let's talk about anxiety today.
0:47.9	And we're going to start with ourselves and we'll get to our kids.
0:50.3	Would you classify yourself now or historically as an anxious person yeah yeah I would
0:58.7	not say I have an anxiety disorder yeah but I think um as things go yeah I mean my family
1:07.8	has always been somewhat anxious sure how about you so I think the same and I think
1:12.7	this is a good little delineation I think that I probably have run a little hot a little anxious most of my
1:18.9	life but I didn't know it to be that and that's my regulated normal and that not that there's
1:24.8	anything wrong with getting medication doing all those those things. I just have not historically.
1:29.3	And so that's my normal.
1:31.0	So I would say, I don't know that I would say it's like a clinically anxious, but I think
1:37.2	I run a little hot.
1:38.3	And I wonder that with our kids too, because we know it's genetic.
	...

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